Wet Paint

Yay, Saturday! The day when I can paint all day and FINALLY finish the "wet" parts of my kitchen refresh.

Two...or wait, three?...weeks ago I started with this: worn, bland, dirty cabinets, and countertops that were in desperate need of attention.

Photos just don't do it justice.

Armed with my new favorite, whole house white (Valspar's Du Jour), I went to work on the uppers. They were actually quite easy after a good scrubbing, since painting white over off white doesn't take a million coats. For the lower cabinets, I was thinking gray. I'd picked up a little test pot of Valspar's Cathedral Stone from Lowe's, and had liked how it tested in the various lighting of our kitchen. Being the impatient DIYer that I am, and being snowed in, sick, and cheap, I decided to just paint with the test pot. I was very surprised to find that I could paint all my lower cabinets using JUST THAT TINY POT. It was like the Bible story about the widow's jar of oil that always had enough. #tinyhouseforthewin

Here you can see the fresh bright "Du Jour" against the old, dingy "Country White". It's not a huge difference, I admit, but on the other hand, it's like, a huge difference.

The countertops look and feel a billion times better now.

Today, after a week and a half of being halfway done, I finally finished painting and sealed everything to make it easy to wipe down. Huge sigh of relief.

I love the smell of polyurethane in the morning. It smells like success.

I do have a few more tweaks that will involve paint (of course) and hardware, but the big, take-over-the-space painting is done. Holla.

So now comes the fun part--styling.

And cleaning.

Pain(t) Week Update

I'm so glad ya'll know me and that this is a safe space. When I say I'm going to paint a bunch of things in a week, you all look at me with a side glance and say, "Uh huh, sure ya are." And none of you get your hopes up like I do in my senseless ambition.

Last week was busy. And full of unpleasant surprises like extremely expensive dental emergencies that made our bank account chortle when I suggested buying more paint.

And then we all got sick.

BUT, out of that loooong list of hopeful projects, two of them are almost done. So there's that! I've extended the week into this one too (while adding light school and lots of Kleenex). Hey, maybe even next week. And the week after. Who knows!

I do have one small photo token to dangle in front of you to prove that I'm doing things.

I'm still working on the uppers. And then I have to put some poly over everything for added protection. But the gray really classes up the joint!

Pain(t) Week

I feel sort of like a war correspondent, feverishly writing a hasty article while hunkered down in my shabby bunker with debris and destruction all around me.

My house is a war zone this week.

We needed a break from school. Like, desperately. And things needed painted. Also desperately. So, I decided that instead of trying to spread out my jobs over a sensible period of time, I'm going to throw the house into chaos and do as many of them as I can this week. There are so many little things that need finishing up. So many painting jobs that are *almost* done. So many test colors on various walls that have been there for over year. It's beyond time to deal.

Here are the list of things, in random order, that I'd like to do. I'm not going to try to kill myself to get through the list, but I do want to wrap up as many as I can.

Paint the hallway ceiling, walls and doors to match the rest of the updated white.
Paint the cabinets and fix up the countertops in the kitchen.
Caulk all the things.
Touch up the bathroom paint and put up trim and baseboards.
Paint the master ceiling, walls, and floor.
Touch up paint where Homegirl has posted artwork.
Paint Homegirl's headboard that I've had in the basement for eons.
Raise the curtains in the living room.
Hang curtains in the kids' rooms.

That should set me up for some future updates, like a total master redo and some freshening up in the kids' rooms. I know this list is ambitious, especially for me. But onward I go.

I'm trying to remember to take pictures of the befores, durings, and afters. There WILL be afters, so help me!

I think my first coat is dry now. Back to the grind.